Challenge of Capturing Socially Generated Land Values: Principle versus Practicality

This paper provides a review of past attempts to harness the uplift in land values arising from granting planning permission to better understand the current difficulties of the use of land value capture. The scheme has been the most successful approach to date, but the theoretical fundamentals are fudged and there are substantial policy variations between localities: a victory of practicality over principle. We argue that a tax on development value would be more effective whilst maintaining the principles of taxing socially generated land values.